London (Informed Comment) – In the last fifteen years the United States has spent a total of between $4 trillion and $6 trillion on its twin wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all the while running up its national debt, and damaging its international prestige. The root cause of these foreign entanglements, and America’s costly position […]
Hidden Dragon: China quietly becomes a Major Player in the Middle East
By Neil Thompson | (Informed Comment) – The era of Western neo-colonial dominance in the Middle East may finally be drawing to a bloody close. The Western monopoly ended almost unnoticed in 2013 when China replaced the European Union as the region’s foremost trading partner, pushing the US into third place, with India breathing at America’s heels […]
Give Democracy a Chance in the Middle East, include the Muslim Religious Parties
London (Informed Comment) – When many Westerners think of the Middle East today they tend to see a region gripped by religious and sectarian violence. What all the many conflicts have in common is the participation of inflexible and fanatical groups of fighters dogmatically opposed to the further modernization and Westernization of their home countries. […]